. >> all right. as we look back, let's begin with the top political story of the year -- the reelection of barack obama. as "timeme"'s magazine cover story stage -- the president is the person of the year -- barack obama will be the first dememocrat in more e than 75 years to win a majority of the popular vote twice. mitt romney has to be asking himself, given the magnitude of the president's problems and the great numbers of americans who believe the country was headed in the wrong dirirection "how did i lose?" the republican national convention, a vermont couple took the stage to describe how mitt romney had helped their termally ill son help settle his affairs. people listening werere in tears but their story never made it to the country. instead, the voters saw this. >> what do y you want me t tell romney? i cannot tell him to do that. [laughter] >> that is just a symptom of what went wrong in the mitt romney campaign, and yet as we observed here week after week, the president was vulnerable and